Background/Aims: Hemodialysis (HD) patients often have inadequate nutrition, especially with respect to ascorbic acid (AA). It is reported that every HD session may cause a 50%– 75% decrease in plasma AA levels. Some studies have shown that supplementation of AA can change the outcome of chronic kidney disease-mineral bone disorders (CKD-MBD), but the effect of AA on HD patients with CKD-MBD remains controversial. Consequently, we decided to perform a meta-analysis to evaluate the efficacy of AA supplementation in CKD-MBD patients requiring dialysis. Methods: A search was conducted using Pubmed, EMBASE, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Wanfang database and VIP information database up to April 2018 for all English and Chinese language publications. The main indicators of our study were changes in serum phosphate (P), calcium (Ca) and parathyroid hormone (PTH) levels after AA treatment. The efficacy of AA was evaluated by weighted mean difference (WMD) and confidence intervals (CI). Cardiovascular events, mortality and adverse events reported during the experiment were also noted. Results: In total, 371 patients in six studies were involved in this meta-analysis. Compared to placebo, AA treatment had no positive effect on serum P (353 patients; WMD = -0.05; 95% CI, -0.3 to 0.2; I² = 28%) or PTH levels (275 patients; WMD = -17.04; 95%CI, -63.79 to 29.72; I² = 75%). The pooled mean difference of the change of Ca levels from baseline was higher in the AA therapy group versus placebo (353 patients; WMD = 0.15; 95% CI, 0.01 to 0.3; I² = 0%). No side effects were observed. Conclusion: Our systematic review and meta-analysis does not support prescription of AA to HD patients with CKD-MBD. AA had no positive effect on CKD-MBD patients as it couldn’t influence the serum P or PTH levels but did raise serum Ca levels in the short-term.

Early clinical stability has been proven to be vital for the treatment of community-acquired pneumonia (CAP). This research retrospectively analyzed the predictive implication of neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and confusion, urea >7 mmol/L, respiratory rate ⩾30 breaths/min, low blood pressure, and age ⩾65 years (CURB-65) score to predict early clinical stability of the adult CAP. Clinical data, CURB-65 scores, pneumonia severity index (PSI) scores, NLR on admission (within 24 h) of 230 patients between January 2012 and June 2015 were obtained from the Affiliated Hospital of Chengdu University. Instable patients had significantly higher CURB-65, PSI, white blood cell (WBC), neutrophil, and NLR than the stable patients (P < 0.05); NLR was positively correlated with CURB-65 (r = 0.270, P < 0.001) and PSI (r = 0.316, P < 0.001). NLR and CURB-65 were screened as risk factors through the discriminant analysis. The area under the curve (AUC) was 0.662 (95% confidence interval (CI): (0.569, 0.756), P = 0.002) for NLR, 0.670 (95% CI (0.569, 0.772) P = 0.001) for CURB-65. The enhanced predictive power was observed for combining NLR-CURB-65 with the AUC of 0.704 (95% CI (0.606, 0.802), P < 0.001). The risk of early clinical instability rose significantly in patients with NLR (odds ratio (OR) = 3.440, 95% CI (1.741, 6.798) with the cut-off value of NLR = 6.161) and higher CURB-65 (OR = 3.797, 95% CI (1.801, 8.005), with the CURB-65 cut-off value of 1.5). Both NLR and CURB-65 are qualitatively accurate for predicting early clinical stability of CAP, an accuracy-enhanced predicting power was observed in the NLR-CURB-65 combined test, further large-sample studies are required to validate the conclusion.

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